Pages

A.R. Von

A.R. is not just a reviewer at Romance Book Junkies. She's my partner and a very close friend. She helps in all aspects of the blog on top of her Writing Career as A.R. Von. She can be contacted @ dragonlady039@gmail.com

Danielle

I am a romance book junkie myself and love to share great books I've read with other book junkies. I'm a 32 year old wife, mother and did I say book junkie? :) I read almost anything but mostly paranormal, historical and fantasy romance and preferably hot. Just a note: Blogging for me is a labor of love. I don't blog for money. I will always post an honest review of a book I've read.

Followers

Follow Me

Rating System

An amazing story! Definitely a keeper.
A must read. A good page turner.
A enjoyable read. An average book.
A book that has flaws and is hard to finish.
Terrible and couldn't finish it.

Giveaways

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Spooktacular Day 7: Guest Post & Giveaway with author Kaitlin Bevis

Things
were different when I was a kid. Witches and vampires and shape shifters
weren't "in." My friends and I were "weird" for reading LJ
Smith books. Growing up in the Bible Belt didn't help. All that stuff was devil
worship.

Had we lived somewhere else,
somewhere more tolerant, maybe that night would have gone differently. Maybe
someone would have taken us aside and introduced us to Wicca. It seems like a
peaceful religion. No one dies because two little girls experiment with Wiccan
spells.

But I didn't, and no one did, so
shots were fired and lives were shattered.

My mom was at work and my best
friend was spending the night. It had been a great night, full of girl talk and
cookie dough and movies. We'd watched The Craft.

"Want to try it?" She asked,
or maybe it was me. We spent so much time together that it was difficult to
distinguish her thoughts from my own. The question had hardly faded from the
air before we found candles and bolted out the door. We ran beneath the fruit trees, kicking up a
carpet of pink and white petals. We set up the candles, bowls of water, and
whatever other tools seemed magical at the time and started chanting some
nonsense about watchtowers in the east.

We were supposed to be visualizing
what we wanted but I couldn't keep a single thought in my mind. It was all so
exciting, all so magical. The moon hung full and low, the trees swayed in the
breeze, the weather was mild, and for a moment, just one moment, magic felt
real.

Then the screams started.

My friend and I stopped our chanting
and looked toward my neighbors house, but
all we saw was the brown privacy fence. There were more screams, the
kids were crying and then a shot fired! Glass broke. My friend and I were on
our feet, grabbing at the candles for some stupid reason, and running inside.

More shots. We locked the back door,
turned on the alarm and ran to my room.

"What have we done?" My
friend gasped, huddled on my bed. Or maybe it was me. It hardly matters now.
Another scream, another shot, then silence.

We talked about calling the police,
but then everyone would know we'd killed our neighbors. So we did nothing.

Except find religion. The next day
it was off to church for us. We threw ourselves into religion all the while
praying for forgiveness for what we'd done. We'd meddled with the dark arts,
invited Lucifer to my land and my poor neighbors had paid the price.

It took a few months for the grown
ups to notice the neighbors were missing. My neighbors were not well liked.
They were actually pretty evil. The reason we had a privacy fence was because
their kid would come up to the fence and spray WD-40 at my dogs eyes. We'd had
to have our siding replaced twice because he liked to use our house as target
practice for his BB Gun. So it wasn't surprising that their disappearance was
seen more as an irritation rather than cause for concern.

You see the grass had grown taller
than me.

"Do they expect us to mow their
grass?" My mother fumed.

"I know! That's a fire
hazard," another neighbor complained.

"Their kids can't possibly be
able to play out there. There's probably snakes and rats and all kinds of
things."

"Has anyone seen their
kids?"

No one had. And the grass continued
to grow.

Months passed and I had another
sleepover, this time with a different friend. We were outside bouncing on my
trampoline when my dog slipped out the back gate. We ran after him but it was
to late. He'd gone into the neighbors yard.

I gulped, and followed. My friend
trailing behind me.

"Why is their grass so tall?"
she asked.

I told her everything while we
searched the yard. Suddenly a burst of white sprang from the grass and up the
concrete pathway to the neighbors back door. With a bark and a leap my dog
pushed on the back door.

And it opened.

"No, Nick!" I shouted,
running after him. He gave me an annoyed look then disappeared into the
neighbors house.

"Was
that open-open?" my friend asked. "Their doors been open this entire
time?"

I inspected the door, hoping my dog
would get bored and come back. "No signs of forced entry," I said
like I knew what it meant.

"Besides the broken
window?" My friend asked, pointing.

I followed her outstretched hand to
the kitchen window. Glass littered the back porch. "Why would the glass be on the outside
if someone broke in?"

She fell silent, considering.
"Maybe they were trying to get out?"

"Nick!" I called, suddenly
really scared. "Come!"

He of course didn't listen.

"If I'm not back in five
minutes--" I started.

My friend rolled her eyes and pushed
open the door. "You coming?"

I swallowed hard and followed her
inside.

The house was empty. Not of things
but of people. You could tell the second you walked through the door that no
one was home. The only sound I could hear was the dull hum of the air
conditioner. But everything looked strange.

I'd been in their house before, and
it had never looked like this. Half their furniture was missing, but not he
valuable half so I didn't think anything had been stolen. The kids shoes were
by the door. Dishes were left on the table. A purse hung from the door. It was
like they'd been in the middle of rearranging furniture and just stopped.

I found the dog and slipped the
leash around his neck while my friend investigated the kitchen and laundry
room. I tied the dog to the door knob and walked down the hall toward the
bedrooms sick with dread. I knew what I was going to find. I'd heard the
screams, and the gun shots. I was going to find their dead bodies riddled with
bullet holes. I opened the door to the master bedroom.

Nothing.

Literally, nothing. All the
furniture was gone, even the shower curtain in their bathroom. Weird.

I moved on to the kids rooms. The
first had a half finished puzzle on the ground, and the second... the second
was

Empty.

I checked all the closets and all
the rooms twice to be sure. "They got away." I whispered.

"Huh?" My friend called.

"They got away!" A grin
split my face in two. I felt giddy and relieved all at once. I hadn't killed my
neighbors! We rushed home and I called my other friend. She was just as
thrilled.

I never did see my neighbors again.
I later heard that they'd had a big fight and gotten divorced. Near as anyone
could figure they'd both moved out and assumed the other hadn't. The house went
on the market, the lawn was mowed and for awhile everything went back to
normal.

Then the devil moved in. But that's
another story.

There are worse things than death, worse people too
The “talk” was bad enough, but how many teens get told that they’re a
goddess? When her mom tells her, Persephone is sure her mother has lost
her mind. It isn’t until Boreas, the god of winter, tries to abduct her
that she realizes her mother was telling the truth. Hades rescues her,
and in order to safely bring Persephone to the Underworld he marks her
as his bride. But Boreas will stop at nothing to get Persephone. Despite
her growing feelings for Hades, Persephone wants to return to the
living realm. Persephone must find a way to defeat Boreas and reclaim
her life.

Excerpt

The branch crashed in front of me, scraping my legs. I ran for the
parking lot as fast as I could. The frost closed in, surrounding me. I’d
never been claustrophobic, but as the frost cut off my escape path with
a solid white wall, I panicked.
Fog rolled in, like cold death, cutting off my view of the park. It
curled around me, brushing against my face, arms, and legs. I turned
back to the tree and ran faster, my dress tangling between my legs as
the fog and icy wind blew against my skin.
The parking lot is the other way! my mind screamed. The other way was
cut off by a mountain of ice. I felt as if I was being herded.
By ice?
I slipped on the icy ground, falling face first into the frost. Ice
crept up my toes and along my legs. I thrashed and screamed. I felt the
fog becoming a solid mass above me, pinning me to the ground. The ice
piled around me. Am I going to be buried alive?
I dug my nails into the frigid snow in front of me and tried to claw my
way out of the frosted death trap. I was so panicked I didn’t feel it
when my nails broke against the impenetrable wall of ice, leaving red
crescents of blood welling up on sensitive skin.
An hysterical sob worked its way out of my throat as I gouged red lines
into the ice. The ice was above my knees, snaking its way up my thighs.
I shivered.
Shivering’s good, I reminded myself. It means your body hasn’t given
up…yet. The cold was painful, like a thousand little knives pricking my
skin. A violent tremor went up my spine, sending waves of pain through
me.
“Help me!” I screamed, knowing it was futile. I was going to die here.
Except I couldn’t die. Could I? Mom said I was immortal, but was that
all-inclusive? Did I have a weakness? Was snow my Kryptonite? If I got
hurt, would I heal or would I be trapped in an injured body in pain
forever?
I suddenly didn’t know if immortality was a good thing or a bad thing.
The cold hurt. I was kicking, screaming, and clawing my way out of the
frost, but for every inch I gained a mountain piled around me. I thought
I heard a man’s laughter on the wind, the sound somehow colder than the
ice freezing me into place.
The ground before my outstretched hand trembled. The shaking increased.
The earth lurched beneath me. The surface cracked and the sound was so
loud that for a moment all I could hear was high-pitched ringing in my
ears. The ground split into an impossibly deep crevice. My voice went
hoarse from screaming as I peered into the endless abyss, trapped and
unable to move away from the vertigo-inducing edge.

Kaitlin is giving away a ebook copy of "Persephone" to one lucky commenter. This giveaway is international. Just leave a comment to enter. Don't forget about entering the Grand Prize everyday by commenting on my blog and Book Lover's Hideaway.

11
comments:

Enjoyed the post! Kaitlin sounds like you had a interesting childhood. "Persephone" sounds like a very interesting story. I enjoyed reading the excerpt and now I want to read more of it. I have added this book to my list to get. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Love the sound of this one! Ive always been fasinated by the gods. I like reading stories about them. Definitely grabbing a copy of this one. Thank you! Many blessings to you!shadowluvs2read(at)gmail(dot)com

I really have to read this writer's books because I couldn't stop reading this post, so she must be good!! A lot of times I just skim them first then go back and read the ones that grab me but this one grabbed me from the get go! Plus, I love the Persephone myth and read all of the retellings I can get my hands on :)